GOP activists side with Chris Christie over media

Many conservatives feel Christie is being mistreated on the national stage. | AP Photo

Scandal or not, some conservatives see Christie as far too liberal — and relish the opportunity to kick him while he’s down.

“If anything, it’s given the conservative wing of the Republican Party in Iowa enthusiasm to take him out in the first-in-the-nation caucus state,” said Jamie Johnson, a social conservative who was Sen. Rick Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director during the last presidential cycle. “It has rocked him like a left hook, and he’s reeling right now, and social conservatives in Iowa now want to deliver a knockout punch.”

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But, Johnson noted, “there seems to be a lot of Republicans who didn’t necessarily feel thrilled about the prospect of Chris Christie running for president, who nevertheless feel the media has overplayed its hand in the Bridgegate controversy, especially when compared to more important scandals such as the Benghazi scandal.”

It’s been a quick fall from grace for Christie, a favorite of the Republican establishment whose proximity to the New York media and skirmishes with more conservative members of his own party have translated into outsize coverage in the Northeast corridor. On Saturday, the governor’s office slammed MSNBC’s coverage of allegations plaguing Christie’s administration, charging that the network has been “openly hostile to Governor Christie and almost gleeful in their efforts attacking him.”

“There are a lot of people in the party who hope this is a teachable moment for Christie and his political team, to realize he can’t count on the liberal media to deliver him the nomination of the presidency,” said a prominent national conservative with close ties to party activists. “If he wants to be president, he needs to start making more reliable friends at the grass roots of the party.”

Darrell Kearney, the finance director of Iowa’s Polk County Republican Party, said he’s heard activists say that the “liberal movement” — a term that includes the media, along with Democrats — has it in for Christie.

“I have heard some activists saying they thought the liberals were after him to knock him down,” Kearney said. “They like the fact that he took immediate action, unlike what Obama does.”

Both establishment figures and those tapped in to the grass roots said in interviews that Christie did all he could by quickly apologizing and dismissing his deputy chief of staff and his campaign manager, both of whom were tied to the scandal. If there are no more shoes to drop, they say, he should be able to put the story behind him.

“Based on his comments and his actions, Iowans are generally going to consider it a dead issue unless something else were to emerge,” said Tim Albrecht, a GOP strategist who until recently served as spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.

Asked about the “circling the wagons” effect among activists, Albrecht added, “I think there is definitely an opening for him, given that grass-roots activists don’t trust the East Coast media to give Republicans a fair shake. It could work in his favor among conservative activists in early states, no question.”